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SCOTLAND ALL-TIME TOP SCORERS

Ally McCoist 260

Willie Wallace 223

Joe McBride 221

Jimmy Wardhaugh 210

John Robertson 192

Kris Boyd 191

Joe Harper 187

Lawrie Reilly 185

Willie Bauld 183

Stevie Chalmers 173

Henrik Larsson 173

‘I’ve always been one to look to the next game — I’ve never spoken about catching this player or that player — I just want to do the best for myself,’ said Boyd, whose side travel to Inverness this afternoon.

‘By the end of play this weekend, it could be 192 or 193 but every single goal has been down to my team-mates. I’ve never been one to take on two or three people.

‘It’s maybe not until you’re finished that you look back on things you have done. Right now, I will always say to myself how can I get the next one and the next one after that?

‘What I know is that the figure I am on just now is not one I am finished with. When you get up out of bed to go to training, you need to have an aim of what you want to do. First of all get yourself in the team, second go and score goals.

‘I’m 32 and I want to score as many as I can. Hopefully, I can continue doing that from now until the end of my career.’

Boyd's goal at Rugby Park was his 191st in the Scottish top flight - sixth in the all-time list

Unfulfilling times playing in Turkey and America had drained Boyd’s enthusiasm before his spirits – and form – were revived by re-joining first club Kilmarnock in February 2013.

Now in his third spell at Rugby Park after a disappointing year-long return to Rangers, he is anxious to re-establish himself as a regular.

‘A couple of years ago, I came back home and quite easily could have finished then,’ admitted Boyd.

‘I had gone through an 18-month spell where I was away and didn’t enjoy football. It was annoying me, but I came back here and loved it.

‘When you are scoring goals, the love of football comes back. There is no better feeling. It’s not until you are not doing it that you realise how good it is.

‘When you get to a position where you have scored a number of goals and that feeling is there most weeks, you crave it. You want it back in your body.

‘Unless you have been fortunate enough to do it on a number of occasions, I don’t really think you can really put a finger on how it feels. I think that’s the case when you go and speak to goalscorers over the years.

‘Ronaldo, for example, you look at his goalscoring record. Messi is more of a team player and his club have won more things. But when you start talking about goals then it is Ronaldo’s stats that are there, because he has a self-drive and a determination to score at a rate no-one else has.’

Boyd says that Cristiano Ronaldo is more single-minded in front of goal that team player Lionel Messi (right)

A necessary self-centredness is, however, now also accompanied by maturity. When Gary Locke overlooked him week after week in favour of Josh Magennis, there was no strop from Boyd.

‘I was part of the team that wasn’t winning games at the start of the season,’ he recognised.

‘So you need to take your punishment and wait on your opportunity to get back in.

‘Years ago, I would have chapped the manager’s door, even if we were winning games and the striker was scoring. I would always think I could outscore whoever was playing up front.

‘But if the team is winning, you don’t really have an argument. For me, the big thing was just to get my head down in training and work for an opportunity.

‘I was fortunate enough to get myself back in the team last week, for the first time in a while, and hopefully and I can kick on until the end of the season.’